Why the plunge? Last night at 3:00 AM, the market experienced a violent market crash, resulting in heavy losses for long positions. $628 million in losses were liquidated across the network, including $459 million in long positions and $168 million in short positions. A total of 139,847 people were liquidated, with the largest single liquidation occurring in Bitcoin worth $12.4876 million.

The decline may be due to sell-offs by "ancient BTC whales," who have been dormant for seven years and have been high-profile swaps for ETH. They currently hold 67,118 BTC (US$7.62 billion) on-chain.

The increasing number of cases of Bitcoin whales swapping ETH for Bitcoin explains Bitcoin's slow rise in this cycle.

The selling pressure on Bitcoin is primarily concentrated in the hands of ancient whales, whose holdings peaked around 2011, when they bought Bitcoin at $10 or less. Today, for every BTC they sell, the market requires over $110,000 in new capital. This can be seen as Bitcoin's growing pains, until the market fully absorbs the investors who have already made 10,000x returns.

However, the whales' sell-offs aren't a rush to cash out, but rather a shift to Ether. Combined with institutional acceptance and the whales' preference for ETH, ETH's astonishing performance has reached new highs, with its exchange rate against BTC steadily rising. The market will now turn its attention to Ether. This is the market's choice; in other words, it's time for Ether to perform. $BTC